


No Below

by Dirtcore Dreams (Dream_tempo)



Category: Absolver, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Absolver AU, Drabble, Dystopia, Existentialism, Gladiators, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:45:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_tempo/pseuds/Dirtcore%20Dreams
Summary: A small AU based off the game Absolver. Derek and Stiles are stuck in an endless world together, forever fighting to just survive, but they make the most of it.





	No Below

**Author's Note:**

> I know this doesn't exactly align with the mythos of the game, but I'm just super into the world design and felt inspired, so. :P Check it out if you're at all interested, even if just for the art direction. Hope you guys don't mind this very atypical drabble from me. Or maybe it isn't so atypical, but oh well. :P 
> 
> Also, kudos to those that recognize the title.

It's an empty place, vast. The horizon stretches on and on, more buildings, more ruins, more temples and shrines. But it's all stone. The hewn rock chokes out what little vegetation exists and holds its masked inhabitants in labyrinthine landscapes that give just enough hope of escape to string them on unto eternity.

Well, only the fresh call it hope. The rest know it to be fear. Fear of the ones who stopped to rest. It would be hard to tell if they weren't just mocking imitations of the people placed here, except that more and more litter the ledges and copses of shade, as generations turn and the assemblage forgets.

Without ever knowing one another's faces, it's near impossible to know if the statue you stand in front of now, is someone you knew before. They're all just specters, hauntings, impressions of the past and future, an emphasis of their echo chamber.

Stiles used to stare at them, used to arrest at their countenance. The weathered weight of his hands would reach out to touch, to hold the ones that fell away from fists and so set to stone. Their palms were just as rough, knuckles gnarled, callouses like sandpaper.

It was so alike, his chest would constrict with panic, his breathing coming rapid behind his mask, filling it with humidity. He'd tremble without any blow, suddenly afraid he'd become part of a matching set— that he'd look into these unseeing eyes forever. He swore he could feel his blood starting to calcify in his veins, his muscles locking up, the air being squeezed out of his lungs.

And then? And then.

Then there was another hand on his, still rough, still so strong it was hard to be gentle. But it pulled his palm away. A thumb stroked over his knuckles and it was hard to comprehend such tenderness from hands lashed to metal, jagged teeth jutting from the top. Stiles turned to look, and as usual there was no face, but the mask was at his level, and the chiseled slits formed windows to salt-soaked eyes. Equal measures of green and grey and blue and the color was so calming.

His instinct is to cast his tension shards, to blow this man back and take stance, but they're still holding hands, and it's been so long... Stiles' shoulders slump. It would take a second, just one, for that man to jab, for the spikes on those turtle gloves to pierce his throat and spatter this spot in red. But they don't move.

“If you must rest, rest with me. It is safer together.” His voice is so soft, too soft for a body so honed. Stiles lets himself be guided to a spot where grass has broken ground, where it's splitting through the rock, desperate to breathe. They lay together there, facing each other, eyes flitting over featureless carvings. This other man's is some kind of slate, layered and brittle, but with flowing grooves.

Stiles puts his fingers to it. Those seafoam eyes smile. “My sister made me it,” the soft voice speaks, “We awoke near the docks, the ones in the east, shadowed by a brass-gilded temple. The stone there was wet, easy to break.”

Stiles reaches out for the bruised hands that brought him here, places them to his own. “My mother's. She was fierce, but had not enough energy to protect us both... I don't want to drag you down, also.” The other man's hands drift down from his face, alight one on his chest, the other his waist.

“We all succumb to the stone, so rest. I would rather have shorter time with more company, than last forever here, alone.” And so Stiles slides forward to put their bodies closer, huddles his body in the shield of another and closes his eyes.

They do not kiss, they cannot unmask. But names are exchanged in the morning and after that many suns pass and when they must rest they always do it together, until the huddle of their bodies is no longer the animal instinct seeking protection, but the tender comfort of two known to one another.

It is not safe, but they dress down, put their armaments to the side so that they might relax. They find that the fluid movements of their bodies are good for more than fighting. Even so, a lot is the same. No matter how they move, they watch each others' eyes. They bow and break in tandem. They shuffle in circles, concentrically moving until they can deliver the final blow that releases their pleasure. Their hands are rough, their bodies hard, but the way they hold another is so careful.

Stiles still stares at the others, but there's always a grip on his shoulder to keep him freezing up. Stiles presses salves into Derek's wounds. Derek holds his gaze as they breathe together before resetting a bone. They sit together in front of the slabs of maps that dot their maze as though parsing out a route forward will ever lead to anything different.

The horizon stretches on and on unto forever, but for now he is not alone in its wake.

 


End file.
